George Bush has been disappointed to hear that this isn’t the kind of jury where he would get to meet Jennifer Lopez and Ryan Seacrest.
Image source: The Guardian
Since the media has been getting a little carried away with endless discussion of the Thursday’s debate between Republican presidential candidates, I’d like to bring up a completely different story involving an actual Republican president. Did you know that this Tuesday, former president George W. Bush showed up for jury duty in Dallas, Texas? Yes, that jury duty, the only civic responsibility which is less popular than voting and paying taxes. Here are 10 highlights of George W. Bush’s time on jury duty.
1) George Bush only showed up for jury duty after 5 medical deferments.
2) In case George Bush was unable to serve on the jury, he brought an alternate juror named Dick Cheney.
3) A large “Mission Accomplished” banner was hung on the wall as soon as the ex-president entered the courtroom.
4) President Bush swore to uphold his judicial duty by placing his right hand on a copy of My Pet Goat.
5) This was the first precedent in the history of the American judicial system when a juror, citing his vast prior experience, had tried to appoint the judge.
6) Bush kept insisting that all witnesses be waterboarded to verify the truthiness of their testimony, and asked the jurors to add “guilty of one count of producing weapons of mass destruction” into every jury verdict.
7) All nine justices of the Supreme Court were on call to issue a decision in case the jury votes were split too closely – like within a few hundred votes or so.
8) During the day when George Bush was supposed to be on jury duty, he spent one third of that time on vacation.
9) Secret service agents who accompanied the former president had searched everyone present in the courthouse and confiscated all firearms, knives, and pretzels.
10) George Bush was excused from every trial due to the conflict of interest, when it turned out that practically every person involved in every case before the court had either voted for Bush, or voted against him.
List of X 
Ha! Well done X. I didn’t even know he had been called for jury duty. I especially like #6.
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Incidentally, “I didn’t know I had been called for jury duty” is the most common excuse people use to try to get out of it.
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LOL. I’m currently a juror in waiting. Bit difficult to say you don’t know about it when you get it by registered mail that you have to sign for,
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I’m sure he was the swing vote in the verdict, since he’s the decider and all.
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He also made it clear that he should be the deciding vote even in the trials where he wasn’t on the jury.
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I’d call this one “fair and balanced” if the balance had :funny” on one side and “brutal” on the other!
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And also if this were fair, which it may not be. 🙂
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How does this work with the SS still following him around?
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That’s just a lifetime perk of being elected president – it must cause some inconvenience, but then you get to pretend you’re a commander of a really tiny private army.
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That sounds kinda cool.
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The actual reason Bush wasn’t selected for any trial was that he ticked off the judge when he wanted to privatize the Texas court system. It would have been taken over by a subsidiary of Halliburton and run by Joe Arpaio of Arizona fame. 😉
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I thought the Texas court system was already privatized – isn’t it where you can give a judge a large sum of money so that he could win the re-election for his seat and then pretend to be fair at your trial?
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I would think that W would have just issued the decision since he is known as “the decider”.
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And he would also have rock-solid (but top secret and known only to him) evidence to justify his decision.
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I couldn’t help but smile when I saw this in the news. Can you imagine showing up for jury duty and finding a former president in your jury group? Regardless of one’s political affiliation, that’s kind of cool. 🙂
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I’m not a fan of president Bush as you’ve probably guessed, but I’d also think it’s cool that an ex-president doesn’t think jury duty is beneath him, and is as approachable as he was.
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That was my thought too.
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I like the way you slipped pretzels into #9.
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I wasn’t even sure anyone would remember that pretzel attack on GWB.
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Oh, I remember. My husband and I giggle about it every time pretzels are served.
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Man… imagine being on trial for something and walking in and seeing Bush and Cheney in the jury box…
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Yeah, that’s like death sentence right there.
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so it would seem
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Add Donald Trump and it’s 100% assured.
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ha
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I love #4 and #8. They were particularly funny and very clever.
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Thank you!
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Haha! Another brilliant one. I think number 5 is my favorite.
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Thank you!
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If someone was found guilty of something, they could be sentenced to “Go Duck Hunting With Dick Cheney.”
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I’m not sure, this seems kind of unconstitutional, as a cruel and unusual punishment.
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Do you think the SS would have to be in the Jury Room or would they just stand outside the door?
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They have to be in the jury room to help Bush convince the undecideds.
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Aha #6. Are you sure he didn’t threaten with the weapons of mass destruction to get out of jury duty?!
I can honestly say I’ve never been called to it thankfully but if I were, my health would not allow it anyway.
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What about Pickles? Has she ever been called for jury duty? Ha!
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Aha nope! Lucky her! Not Lowryder either or Mr. Gibber that I know of.
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I’m not sure what he did, but he got excused from the jury duty after just three hours.
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We must figure that out for future reference.
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What for? I have no plans to call him for jury duty. 🙂
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If we get called to it, we need to know his secret to getting out of it ha
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Well, now that you mention it, his dad ised to be President.
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That would do it!
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Thank you!
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He was posing for pictures and signing autographs. I don’t think I’d want my picture with George Bush. Would you? You never know. I could have become star-struck and looked at him all gooey-eyed and fawning. Perhaps a pic would have made a halfway decent blog post. I guess I might have done it after all.
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Did I really really need to be reminded of this guy? I don’t think I’d trust him to make a rational decision on jury duty, by the way.
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Isn’t there a qualification criteria for jury duty? Like, some sort of capacity for logical reasoning?
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There is, but former presidents are exempted from this requirement.
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How about adding this one?
Donald Rumsfeld was positioned outside, with the entire US Army behind him, to eliminate any jurors (and judge, if necessary) who refused to vote with GWB!
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And all of the major U.S. news media outlets prepared to criticize any jurors who disagree with George Bush for being unpatriotic.
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# 10 – haha! It has the added benefit of being true.
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I laughed out loud at the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner. And ‘My Pet Goat’. Perfect.
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You laughed at two of my jokes – now that is indeed Mission Accomplished. 🙂
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That’s pretty great.
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I can’t think of anything to add, but Condoleeza Rice to the jury. I knew I wasn’t going to recover from laughing so hard, after I read number 3. Outstanding X. 😀
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